It is well known to provide individual packaging for contact lenses. In particular, disposable contact lens for daily wear are often provided in horizontal strips of about 5 or 6 individual cases, each case containing a respective individual contact lens, with typically about 30 individual cases provided in a cardboard box (i.e. enough lenses for about 1 month for 1 eye).
Daily-wear disposable lenses are conventionally formed of silicone hydrogel materials, which must be kept hydrated and in curved form, so that they are immediately ready for use when removed from the packaging. Thus, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,260,695 discloses packaging for hydrogel contact lenses in a dehydrated state, such that the packaging disclosed therein is not useful for providing hydrogel contact lenses in a ready-to-wear form.
It is known also to provide packaging for contact lenses in which the lenses are stored flat, rather than in curved form (see e.g. US 2004/0238380). This is suitable for contact lenses formed of older style materials, but is not appropriate for contact lenses made using the latest silicone hydrogel materials, as it has been found that storing them in flattened form stretches them beyond their elastic limit, and when removed from the flattened packaging the lenses do not resume the desired curvature for optimum fit and/or optimum optical correction.